Tutankhamun Uncovered (11 page)

“No! You will obey me! Do not enter this room. You must do as I say. It is

for your own protection that I speak these words.”

“My protection? From what do you contrive to protect me, my lord?”

“From that which you do not need to know, my Queen. That which you must not know.”

“If those are the orders of Pharaoh, I must obey.”

The queen turned to the guard standing behind her. “Give me your firebrand. Now, leave us!” She turned to the other. “Both of you!”

The guards looked at the king. He nodded. The guards disappeared back up the staircase towards the glimmer of light at the tomb entrance.

As soon as the sound of their footsteps had faded away Ankhesenamun spoke. “Now there is no one to hear or see, I will ask you, my lord, once more in this the sepulchre of my father, what is it here that you wish to protect me from?”

So far as Ankhesenamun could see in the light thrown by her single torch, the king was standing in the middle of the burial chamber amongst a thick scatter of rubble. Akhenaten’s sarcophagus, like that of Nefertiti, had been smashed to pieces. The queen knew they would have stripped her father for his jewellery, just as they had done her mother. She would be distressed by the sight of him but had to see for herself.

“I await your answer, my lord.”

“Ankhesenamun. Beloved of Pharaoh. I pray you let us leave this place.”

The queen was quick to recognise that what had previously been an outright order had now moderated to a simple request. She walked forward tentatively and into the huge chamber.

She looked around but couldn’t see anything that resembled a body. With her torch held out ahead of her she walked around in a circle examining the floor. All she could make out were slivers of torn bandaging, pieces of broken grave goods and what appeared to be fragments of mutilated mummified animal parts.

Then she recognised the decapitated head.

This morning the sky was clear but for a low mist that hung like gossamer over the sacred lake. The sun was just up, illuminating the surrounding gardens of the temple complex. Shadows thrown by the massive structures cut the mist dense black, long and bladelike.

Accompanied by his familiar entourage, Maya strode purposefully into the temple compound looking for Parannefer. He walked through the gardens and came upon the high priest sitting on his haunches at the water’s edge. Attended by some temple maidens he was cleansing himself before beginning his day’s duties. Maya hastened over to the steps where the priest was squatting and signalled to the girls to withdraw.

“Parannefer! Oh, Holy One. Terrible news is brought to me this day... I have been summoned by Pharaoh to Akhetaten, to recover and reinter Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family at Thebes. I am told there is much despoliation!” Maya raised his arms in a gesture of disgust. “I had no alternative but to come to you. You must know before I depart.”

Parannefer stood up. “And what, may I ask, is Pharaoh doing in the forbidden city?”

“I know not. The royal couple did not consult with me before leaving. They knew I would advise otherwise. The vizier and the general assisted them in their wishes. Neither of them would dare question Pharaoh’s judgement.”

“Royal couple? The queen has travelled thence, too?”

“Aye. It was she who wished to visit the tomb of her family.”

“The gods protect us! Pray they will not become angered. I must make haste to give offerings. This is a black day indeed. A black day.” The priest knelt and bowed his head.

“I was hopeful of some advice, High Priest. That is why I have hastened to your presence. Our lord is good. We both know that, do we not?”

The priest, still kneeling, nodded his agreement.

“It was the queen who discovered the penetration.”

In an instant Parannefer got up again. “Penetration? The royal sepulchre is violated?”

“Aye. Ransacked. Looted. Even the bodies.”

The high priest covered his face with his hands. “A black, black day indeed.”

“The Pharaoh would not have gone to placate the Aten. He would have gone solely to satisfy the wishes of his loved one. And the Queen must have travelled there for one reason and one reason only to give offerings to her family, so cruelly abandoned by her subjects following ‘the sickness’.

“Help me, Parannefer. I need your good counsel regarding the proper reverent practices that should accompany such a re-interment. I must do nothing to anger the gods. Otherwise the kas of the royal family will meet many dangers, ultimately even, Seth. They will all be killed forever! They will be but as the dust beneath our feet. Such thoughts are inconceivable. High Priest, help me! Help the royal couple in their time of need!”

Parannefer opened his fingers and looked at Maya. “You will go to the forbidden city as your monarch has commanded. Before entering the tomb you will cleanse the threshold with holy water. Only then may you enter the royal sepulchre and penetrate to the royal household. Go prepared with new coffins theirs certainly will have been destroyed...”

“I have them already,” the treasurer interjected.

“...And the bodies, I have no doubt, will be in various states of dismemberment. Prepare yourself for these abhorrent sights. Most of all, be sure you follow the correct religious procedures or their kas will surely die for eternity. The responsibility is wholly yours.”

With this comforting thought, Maya began to back away from the priest. His boat was waiting at the harbour entrance to the great temple.

Parannefer saluted him. The priest turned and pointed in the direction of the long rows of giant, brightly coloured columns that extended towards the dark inner recesses of the enormous temple. “I, in the meantime, will every day go to the shrine and pray for the forgiveness of the king. Pray the gods will believe in me, Maya. Pray hard!”

Maya was not at all convinced that he had received any helpful advice. He left the temple precinct with a heavy burden on his shoulders and embarked for the forbidden city. For his own personal safety, he had not one thought. His mind was consumed entirely with his concerns for the eternal security of the royal family. That depended on the wills of the gods and their prevailing pleasure. Should they choose to damn the family of Akhenaten, so damned would be Ankhesenamun and Tutankhamun, and thereby the royal couple’s accompanying entourage, and thereby the Egyptian people. Maat would become but a memory. It was a terrifying prospect a responsibility of far-reaching consequences.

The high priest was watching as Maya’s flotilla disappeared downstream. “The gods shall support you in your endeavours, Treasurer. I shall see to it. Should it not be so, I, too, will be done for.”

The royal party’s journey back to Thebes took longer than expected. The wind had got up and was against them. The captain was not displeased. His task had never been to get the royal couple back to Thebes in one piece. Delay was the least of his concerns. He used the winds skilfully. Tacking allowed him to steer towards anything with considerable accuracy. When he reached the appointed place, he felt confident he would have no trouble at all manoeuvring the boat towards its doom.

The king, however, was becoming impatient at their slow progress. He shouted to one of the guards. “Summon the captain!”

The captain appeared before the kiosk and prostrated himself.

“Get up, man. Why is our progress slothful?”

“My lord. It is the current and... and the headwind. They combine against us.”

“Ah. The vagaries of the current and of the winds, is it? I thought you were knowledgeable in these things and therefore could use them to advantage.”

“Aye, my lord. I am as you say. I have applied my skills. But the elements are unusually against us. Had I not been skilful as you describe, we would not yet have made as much progress as my lord has witnessed.”

“These words do not please me. You will make haste or I shall find another.”

The captain, given the reward he was expecting from the general, did not fear for his job. He feared, however, for his life. The Pharaoh could take that away with a wave of his hand. The fact was that he had been making as much speed as he could. That the Pharaoh was not satisfied meant he would have to take more risks. Given the objective, that might not be so bad. Should the boat capsize because he let his sails out too early, the king could be lost and he would accomplish his task and receive his reward. But, try as he might, the captain was unable to get the craft to capsize.

Further upriver lay the rocky shallows of his failed downstream attempt. He realised that with the progress they were making he would come upon them during daylight hours. He was not prepared to take the risk while the royal couple were awake and alert. He had to come upon the spot under cover of darkness. He ordered the steersman to pull over to the river bank and tie up.

“Why are we stopping?”

“My lord,” the captain answered, “this is our normal re-provisioning stop. And, as my lord has remarked, the journey has taken longer than expected. We are running short of food for the crew. From this point onwards there will be no further opportunity to take on fresh provisions until we reach our destination. I do not want to risk...”

“Enough! Risk it! We most urgently desire to be in Thebes. Use the oarsmen throughout the night if needs be. Cast off! We must make haste!”

“Aye, my lord.”

After receiving such an order it would have been unthinkable, not to mention suicidal, for the captain to have attempted to reason further with the king. So the boat continued on its way and, because in broad daylight there could be no opportunity, the flotilla passed the area of rocks without incident. The dreadful deed undone, the ship sailed safely on to Thebes.

Inevitably the captain’s fate would be decided by the secret he had held with the general. In the event, his failure to carry out his assignment made little difference to his future. Shortly after disembarkation he had disappeared without trace.

Chapter Four

“Akhenaten, as I live and breathe!” Bellowed Petrie.

“How can you tell, sir?” asked Howard.

“Bloody ugly! The only ugly Pharaoh portrayed as ugly though many must have been. Fat body. Fat lips. My boy, you have come across a truly rare treasure!”

Digging alongside Petrie at El Amarna, Carter had come across a large fragment of what had once been an oblong, flat tablet of limestone delicately inscribed with a family portrait of the Pharaoh along with his wife and his two daughters of that time. In common with most relics of Akhenaten, what he had found was but a piece of a much larger carving smashed during the frenetic purging that had followed the accession of Pharaoh Horemheb.

Petrie closely inspected the object. “Systematic destruction has all but eliminated evidence of this Pharaoh’s reign. A rarity. A true treasure,” he repeated.

Petrie likened the time to the period of the Restoration a destruction complete in its scope but not so thorough as to reduce to dust all evidence of the heretic’s existence. It was as if the mobs had executed their task with great urgency in fear that the god Aten might catch them in the act and wreak some dreadful retribution on them. The vandals’ attack was quick; their withdrawal all the quicker. In a frenzy of industry, the city Akhenaten had built had been systematically dismantled and the site abandoned. Razed to the ground, ignored and forgotten for centuries, it had been allowed to sink inexorably beneath the eternally moving sands.

The tablet Carter now held in his hands was part of a gentle portrayal of the king sitting on his throne with his wife upon his knee. Her two children were on her lap. The poignancy of the scene impressed him immensely and it became the principal subject of conversation with Petrie that evening at their camp.

But their discussion was interrupted. The camp boy brought a telegram from Cairo.

Howard’s father, Samuel Carter, had died of a stroke. The man who had given him the gifts and taught him the skills that he had been using to such advantage these past months he would never see again. The tin of tobacco and cigarette papers he had been given at their parting still lay amongst his things inside the rude brick shelter Petrie had made him build for himself. Impulsively he got up and went to look for them. The gold coloured tin lid flashed in the candlelight. He held it for a few moments, imagining his father’s fingers about it as it had been pressed into the teenager’s hands at the station; that anxious look on his heavily bearded face as he waved at the departing train; the following smoky fog that had descended over him and extinguished his father’s image for ever.

Carter felt a heavy sense of guilt. He had become so engrossed in his work at Amarna that he had not given his family perhaps one single thought for weeks. Certainly he had not written. He consoled himself privately that any letter he might have sent from the desert in the last weeks would still be languishing in the postal bins of Alexandria awaiting the next ship. It probably would have arrived after the funeral as a not so pleasant reminder for a widow and mother trying to adjust to the finality of a fundamentally changed existence.

He had never held a strong attachment to his mother but from now on he would happily write to her periodically. He was not so preoccupied with his work that he did not realise she would now become more focused on the adventures and prosperity of her remaining family, especially those far away. He hastily scribbled a short return cable to acknowledge he had received the sad news.

Within a few days of this, downcast temporarily in spirit and tired in any case from the hard work he had so willingly endured, Carter fell sick. He begged leave of his instructor and took to his bed to try to throw off the fever.

Never before had Carter experienced a fever this strong. Every bone in his body seemed to ache. So extreme was the discomfort that he longed to be numbed by sleep. But, when this finally came, he found the relief only temporary. Within seconds of falling asleep it seemed he was wide awake again. He was hallucinating.

He could tell these were dreams. He felt no part of the illness. He was at once in Swaffham.